


The Maker of My Sorrow

by BlueColoredDreams



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Implied Rape/Molestation/Non-con, Institutional and casual ableism, Institutionalized characters, M/M, Marked for Death, Paranormal AU, Psychics, Slow Burn, Spirits, Supernatural Beings, Violence, descriptions of death, injuries, posession
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-30
Updated: 2017-02-19
Packaged: 2018-04-24 00:37:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4898809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueColoredDreams/pseuds/BlueColoredDreams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kei has never once asked to see the things he has, or learned the truths he’s learned. He continues living as he always has, trying to ignore the shadows in the corners of his sight.</p><p>The flutter of feathers follow his every move…</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Encounter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of a genre shift for me. This is the first time I've ever tried my hand at writing suspense/paranormal/light horror. So, bear with me! If you would, please keep the tags in mind, especially regarding the ones involving mental illness and institutions; several characters have backgrounds with sensitive issues, including one that was put into a care facility because their family suspected a mental illness. I understand that this, more than ghosts or death, is something not everyone is comfortable with; please be aware. Thank you! 
> 
> I did a bit of world building for this fic, that I posted [here](http://bluecoloreddreams.tumblr.com/post/128296923654), including a rough mix for the fic ([here](http://8tracks.com/bluecoloreddreams/the-maker-of-my-sorrow)).

Everything is shades of muted dark, foggy; the world hasn't been anything but smears of color for a long time. He simply hasn't been able to see through the haze of black that's covered his eyes like gauze. Something catches his ankle, tugs.

The thing at his feet chatters, a clicking of teeth and bones. He falls onto the pavement, the ground cold and unforgiving.

* * *

Sunlight glares bright through the glass façade of the optometrist’s office and Kei sighs through his nose, eyes burning already. The pain doesn't let up when he steps outside, colors and crisp early springtime sunlight piercing his retinas.

He misses the fog his glasses provide already; in fact, he's ready to turn around and take them back, taped bridge and all. It's too much.

Even though it's a new section of town, all bright steel and shining glass and flat concrete, the streets are still bubbling with them, oozing their ozone bodies out of the ground, seeping like boiling tar.

He watches them over–long, and they feel his attention. Eyes pop out of nowhere, large and slit-pupiled. They catch his presence.

_good smell good you you you smell nice good food food help help come back help food eat blood good help spirit_

Their sounds fill his ears: their mockeries of voices, wet smacking like too moist tongues against dried lips, slurred vowels and moans. Under it all, there’s the persistent sound of fluttering wings, like a flock of birds taking flight in dead air; more than the sound of the spirits’ dirge, this is what unsettles him the most. It isn’t a new sound, but it’s a troubling one—he only ever hears it when something particularly nasty is about to go down. There’s still a scar across his shoulder that reminds him to be wary when he hears the sound.

He hastily averts his eyes from the fog of spirits, fingers fumbling with the sides of his headphones. He snaps them over his ears, muffling the unearthly howling in his ears. He lingers on the threshold of his optometrist’s, knowing between the wards on the office (there was a reason he continued to visit this particular doctor) and he ones he’d coaxed into his headphones, some of their attentions would falter.

Or at least, for a moment. He adjusts his scarf against his neck, tucking it over his mouth, and briefly considers forgoing the pastry shop visit, but decides against it. Cake trumps the prickly discomfort that walking through spirits gives him.

He’ll just have to shower for a bit longer to clean away the gritty feeling the more powerful ones will give him, that’s all. That’s all it ever is. That’s all it’s going to be.

He tucks his hands into his pockets and murmurs under his breath, “ _Unnoticed._ ”

He strides out of the office and down the sidewalk, legs carrying him at a brisk pace towards his favored patisserie. Spirits scatter at his feet, leaving a wake behind him. Some, the ones that are too powerful for a quiet litany to work, reach for his ankles, shadow-sinewed fingers slipping against the air mere centimeters from the fabric of his jeans.

He keeps walking, focuses his energy on walking and keeping up the barrier. It looks like every spirit in the damn city is out and on the streets that afternoon; Kei isn’t certain if he’s seeing more because he doesn’t have his glasses to divert his attention or if something’s up.

He hopes it’s the former, not the later. He doesn’t want to be on the streets if something spiritual is about to go down; but then, he thinks, that Akaashi would have warned him in the office. The man knew Kei’s distaste for the spiritual community and getting swept up in petty exorcisms and psychic dribble—and as one of the city’s strongest psychic pillars, his optometrist surely would know if something nasty had stirred.

Or maybe he wouldn’t. Kei doesn’t know.

He’s never asked. He’s never wanted to know the answers. In fact, he doesn’t want anything to do with any of it; if it hadn’t been the only viable option, Kei wouldn’t have started visiting Akaashi’s office anyway.

He sighs into his scarf, bumping up the volume of his music, trying to drown out his thoughts like he’d cut off the moans of the surrounding ghosts.

He makes it to the patisserie without much incident aside from having to kick a particularly nasty female spirit off of his leg; judging by the way her back was twisted and arms were disjointed, she’d been hit by a car and was looking to drag him into her same fate.

He’d been particularly pleased with the way her shadow flesh had splintered under the sole of his boot. He’s not sure where they go after he does that, but it’s never bothered him other than a mild curiosity. He rather hopes she went to hell. 

He buys an entire cake and a large cup of coffee for the walk home. The warmth seeps into his chilled fingers—the sky may have been bright and blue, but spring hadn’t yet managed to shake the last of winter off yet, he thinks.

He hits the crosswalk and sips his coffee contemplatively. Someone bumps into him and jostles his headphones off of one ear; the rush of wings fills his ears again. He nearly spills his coffee in his haste to slip them back on, but by that point he feels something’s attention slip down his spine.

He hesitates, looking around as the pressure on him increases, the hairs on the back of his neck rising with the gooseflesh that shivers across his skin.

There is nothing. It is  _nothing_. Nothing at all:

The sludge of spirits from the office has dissipated back to a usual level. There’s a small sprite skittering down the sidewalk with a piece of trash in its tentacle-lined mouth—small _kodama_ hang from the trees planted up and down the sidewalk. In the air on the horizon, something is floating like smoke—but not a single one of these things have their attentions on him, and none of them, not one, are powerful enough for this feeling.

As abruptly as it comes, the feeling of being watched leaves. Kei swallows, taking a long gulp of coffee to wet his suddenly dry mouth. Suddenly, the desire to go home overwhelms him.

He does something in his panic that he never does—he turns at the crosswalk rather than cross it and heads towards a poorer section of town, one that's all pawn shops and close-packed, run-down apartment buildings. It’s shorter to cut through this part of town than to keep to the newer sections, but he long-ago decided to steer clear of it.

Not just because it’s a rough section of town and he’s a young male with nicely tailored clothes, the sort that are made to look rough and cheap but really aren’t, and expensive headphones—but also because that part of town is _old_.

There’s a shrine nestled behind one of the apartment complexes that Kei thinks is at least a century old. Age combined with poverty… does not make it a neighborhood he wants to stroll through, unless he wants to have to curb stomp more spirits. Typically, he does not.

Today, though, he just wants to be home—badly enough to take a risk he normally wouldn’t.

But he wants it so badly.

He doesn’t stop to think what _it_ is. He just fills in the blank himself: that he wants to go home.

He hurries down cracked sidewalks, weeds already blooming up through the concrete, fueled by sunlight and the melted morning frost and desperation to thrive. The spiritual aura of the area presses on his eardrums, a loud, roaring silence, even through his headphones. Dingy windows with flickering ‘open’ signs reflect his harried stride, and from the corner of his eye he sees the first wisps of actual spirits in the area. Old ones; some of them might have even been living spirits, born from the ill-will of the neighborhood residents. Kei doesn’t take the time to notice. 

He presses forward, taking the corners blindly and quickly. Residents follow his movement with their eyes, but Kei doesn’t meet their gaze or run into anyone.

His stomach churns and his mouth is dry. Coffee from his paper cup sloshes over his fingers, and the feeling of being followed starts to grow higher. He doesn’t turn around to look. He keeps moving forward.

He tries to focus on his music, but the song has gone to something electronic, with a bass line that matches his own rising heartbeat and he hasn’t been this certain that something dangerous is about to happen since the day he’d realized the white pebbles he carried in his pockets were pieces of skull.

He’s contemplating darting through the street, crosswalk light be damned, when someone starts screaming.

It pierces through his headphones, breaking the ward at his ears with its panic. Its wordless, terrified and it freezes Kei’s heart.

“ ** _Someone help me, help please—!!_** _”_

The words form seconds after and he only hears part of it before the howl of spirits cuts in. He turns, looking behind him wildly. He runs towards the sound—the voice screaming sounds human.  
  
The noise emanates from a dingy side ally, concrete breaking away to moss and dirt and rubble; it’s barely big enough for two people to walk down. The buildings around it cast the alley into shadows, like the alley has been plunged into night. It’s made even darker by the fog of spirits swarming in and out; it stinks like a rotting body, and for a second Kei thinks he’s heard a ghost scream for help when a dirty hand stretches out from the darkest part of the alley and scrabbles at the gravel, nails digging tracks into the moss as its pulled backwards.

Kei dives into the darkness. “ _Get out of my way!_ ” he shouts, fixing his mind on the image of spirits dispersing away from him. Something catches in his chest and for a brief second, he can’t breathe, something thick and slimy and tasting like burnt rubber invades his open mouth.

As quickly as it comes, it leaves, leaving him gagging as he dives forward towards the hand. He crushes his foot down against the shirtsleeve, spirits flooding away from the spot like shots. They howl curses at him, spiting in anger over being forced away from their meal. He looks at them as they flee and scream, light filtering through overhead as the brunt of the lower-level ones flee. It burns through the stupider, weaker ones and there’s a sudden burst of wing-beats, and the rest flee.

“Pathetic,” Kei mumbles, watching them dissipate. He can’t shake the feeling that it was far too easy to get rid of them—that many, and with them hungry enough to physically drag a human, should not have been banished by a simple command.

He turns his attentions away from his unease and kneels in front of the kid they were dragging. It’s a teenager—maybe even someone his own age.

He can’t tell if they’re a girl or a boy, only that their hair is long and dark and matted, and that they are absolutely _filthy_. They reek of evil spirits, and their clothes are tattered and worn and maybe a bit too big.

It looks like the spirits had tried to consume the average homeless person in their hunger. Kei lifts his boot and huffs. “Get up and get inside before it gets dark,” he says simply.

He turns and steps out of the alleyway. There’s scrabbling behind him, and a soft voice calls after him, “Wait!”

Kei looks over his shoulder, and sighs. “I’d rather not. They’ll come back soon enough.”

“I know,” the boy cries. He clutches something in a dirty hand. Kei scowls and squints at it as it catches the light; it’s a large chunk of quartz, the sort you’d buy at a souvenir kiosk in a museum. It’s wrapped in a cheap leather cord that’s looped around the boy’s hand and wrist.

To the untrained eye, it probably looks like smokey quartz. To Kei, it looks like it’s been used one too many times to disperse spirits. It looks like it's in desperate need of a clearing to purge it of the evil spirits trapped within. 

“Please,” the boy pleads. “They won’t leave me alone.”

“I’m not becoming their dinner in your place,” Kei retorts. He sets back off down the sunny sidewalk.

Footsteps follow him; Kei doesn’t look back, but he’s certain the boy is following him. He wonders if he walks fast enough, or just ignores the kid, he’ll be left alone. Somehow, though, he doubts it.

And he’s right to: the boy follows him all the way to Kei’s apartment, pleading with him up until the moment Kei slams the door right in his face.

Kei kicks off his boots and hangs up his coat, sighing softly in relief as the voice goes quiet.

He walks to the kitchen and sets his box of cake down on the counter, peeking warily into the box. It’s a bit smushed and definitely jostled, but still edible.  Though, he thinks as he cuts himself a slice, he’s eaten a completely obliterated one before, having had tripped with it in his arms when a spirit grabbed at his ankle.

He’s midway through a second slice and a cup of tea when the window over his sink starts to rattle. Kei turns to look at it with apprehension.

A large, fleshy mouth is pressed up against the glass. There are too many teeth, and the jaw scrapes against the panes, opening up until Kei is certain that if it were a human mouth, it would be dislocated. A bloody, shadowy tongue licks up against the glass. He stumbles back a few steps before dashing to his bedroom to look out the window there—a similar sight meets his eyes. Hands push up against the frame, forming and reforming endlessly.

He swears and runs towards the front door, throwing it open. The boy falls over the threshold and Kei takes a handful of a dingy hoodie and pulls, dragging the boy into his entrance way. He slams the door and pushes against it, wood creaking as shadow-flesh hits it. The stink of corpses fills his nose. The door thuds once, twice, three times before falling still against Kei's back. 

“You!” he hisses, turning to face the boy. “What the hell are you thinking! Drawing them to you like that!”

“What?”

“You’re calling every evil spirit in the prefecture _to my apartment_!” Kei shouts, “And you _stink_! No wonder they’ve come after you!”

The boy gapes up at him, head turning in a slight shake. “I—I don’t—I didn’t know—”

Kei heaves a sigh and pinches the bridge of his nose under his glasses. “Just—first thing, take a shower.”

The boy perks up, “May I?”

“Yes. God, shut up. Look, my name is Tsukishima Kei. And you’re _not_ staying here permanently. I’m kicking you out once these spirits disperse.”

“I’m Tadashi. Yamaguchi Tadashi,” the boy says, “But please, before you do—tell me how you got them to go away.”

Kei looks at Tadashi and sighs. “Shower first. You’re disgusting.”

“Ah,” Tadashi murmurs, looking down at his clothes. “Well.”

“And leave those clothes out; I need to put them in the burnable trash pile.”

“I don’t have any more,” Tadashi confesses. He feels his face burn in embarrassment; “I know I’m… dirty, but... they’re all I have, really.”

Kei sighs. “Fine, I’ll just wash them in salt water. Maybe that’ll purge it enough to keep the spirits from coming back to you.”

Tadashi nods softly. He stands and slowly undoes the laces on his shoes, careful not to dislodge the parts that are peeling away. Kei tries not to note that they’re held together with duct tape in places.

He’s letting a homeless man shower in his house.

A homeless man that reeks of evil spirits and has a hunk of rock tucked in his pocket that’s in desperate need of purification—something he **isn’t** good at. A homeless man that drew spirits to his apartment like it hadn’t been warded against them; a chill goes down his spine as he wonders if the year-old _o-fuda_  will even hold. He doesn’t want to owe that man anymore favors—he’s a bit frightening about it all, all dark, calculating eyes and fussy temperament.

Kei swallows dryly as he makes a mental note to pour salt into the other man’s shoes.

“Come on, this way,” he murmurs, brushing aside Tadashi to show him to his bathroom. His apartment is nice, clean. Everything is more or less new; because of that, it’s sparse.

Kei pretends it’s minimalist rather than admit he refuses to buy second-hand furnishings just to avoid the spirits and living curses attached to a good deal of them. He gestures silently towards the small hallway that opens up in the space between his kitchen and sitting area. “Second door on the left.”

“Thank you,” the young man says again.

Kei clicks his tongue. “There’s a shelf with towels, use the white ones.”

“Ah, they may end up…” Tadashi murmurs softly, rubbing the back of his neck anxiously. Dirt flakes away at the movement. Kei tries not to flinch. 

“I’m aware. White towels are bleachable,” Kei says, feeling a bit cruel to point this out. “Look, white ones are cheap too,” he mutters, feeling a bit like a jerk for picking on the other man for circumstances he might not have been able to help.

For all he knows, he could have ended up homeless too, had his grandmother not recognized what was happening to him. He clears his throat and laces his fingers together at his waist, looking away from Tadashi. “Leave your clothes out by the door once you’ve stripped down. All of them. I’ll find you something to change into while these are being washed. They may need more than one pass with salt.”

“A…all right,” Tadashi murmurs. “Um. Things that can’t go in the wash? Wh… what should I do with those?”

Kei purses his lips. “Like? Wallet and phones? Things like that? They can just be sat in a baggie with the salt for a bit. It’d be better if I could leave them out in the sunlight, but… It’s getting late, and I don’t want to risk that,” he says, talking more to himself than to Tadashi.

“How do you know all this stuff?” Tadashi asks eagerly, leaning forward onto his toes. “It’s amazing—you’re the first person who knows anything—Even when I’d speak to the grannies at the shrines, they just—they… Well.” He falters and rubs over his collar-bone self-consciously.

Kei makes a face, a chill shivering down his spine. Something about the action unsettles him deeply. There’s a sudden whiff of corpses and Kei takes a step back. “I don’t know anything. Get into the shower. Something’s on you. There’s a homemade bottle—it’s in the cabinet, with herbs and salts—douse yourself in it. Use it all. Something—you’re—”

“Tsukishima? Are you alright?” Tadashi asks softly, taking a step forward. He holds out one dirty hand, fingers raw and bloody from where he’d used them to hold himself when he was being dragged back; Kei notices it suddenly, and the scent suddenly is more than he can handle.

“Stay away from me!” he snaps, taking a step back. “Just do it.” The roar of blood in his ears sounds like a thousand wings beating all at once.

“Okay,” Tadashi says hesitantly. “I’ll just set them outside of the door,” he murmurs.

Kei runs a hand through his hair absently, not really listening. He stands as Tadashi slinks down the hall and disappears into the bathroom. He lets his muscles lock briefly before giving one long sight, letting his face relax, then his neck, then slowly down until he drops his hands to his side and lets them hang limp.

Everything is fine. It’s fine, and he can handle it. He can handle it. He can, he tells himself.

Kei pads into his bedroom, socks sliding on the laminate; the action brings a memory of even slicker floors and a larger hand in his own. He doesn’t dwell on it. It doesn’t do to dwell, but the flicker of it calms him enough that he’s able to choose clothing for his guest and go to the bathroom door without any lingering anxiety.

“I’m leaving the clothes out here, don’t forget to lay out yours,” Kei calls through the door, rapping it twice with his knuckle before leaving.

“A-all right,” Tadashi calls back.

Kei sighs through his nose and puts the clothes at the door; it’s just a simple pair of cotton lounge pants and a sweater, as well as an older pair of undergarments. He hopes they’ll fit Tadashi, because otherwise, the other man is out of luck.  
  
He turns and opens the folding, slatted doors that hide his washer and dryer. He taps his fingers, looking up at the shelves. He pulls his detergent down, as well as the dark paper bag behind it. He opens the washer and sets the load to hot and heavy soil and lets the drum fill before he empties half of the paper bag into the water, the white, opaque crystals settling into the bottom as they slowly dissolved.

He sighs through his nose and shakes the bag, studying the remaining amount. He starts to tally the things he needs in his head. Rock salt. Check the _o-fuda_. Distill more water for minor purifications. Buy more plastic bags. 

He massages the bridge of his nose and goes to collect Tadashi’s heavily soiled clothing. They reek of spirits despite being filthy from wear and mud. Kei imagines he can hear them hiss as they touch the water in the washing machine. He sticks his hands into the water for good measure, sinking his hand deep into the drum to scoop up a handful of grainy salt to scrub at his skin.

He lets the washer close with a bang. He picks up Tadashi’s wallet and shattered-screened cellphone with the tips of his fingers, holding them away from him. He kicks the black-tinged crystal in front of him, unwilling to even touch it.

The wallet and phone get put into bags of rock salt, each topped off with a piece of quartz that had been left in the sunlight. He seals the bags and sets them on the counter.

“Ugh,” he mutters to himself, eyeballing the chunk of crystal on the floor. It was lucky, he guesses, that Tadashi had stumbled upon using quartz as a protection stone, but it was obvious he had no idea what he was doing.

And Tadashi wanted _Kei_ to teach him how to do it, it seems. Kei clicks his tongue and turns away  from the makeshift necklace, reaching for a jar of clear water from the cabinet above him. 

“Shit,” he sighs. “The last one. _Dammit_. First the glasses and now this.”

He rubs the back of his neck and looks between the jar and the sullied rock on the ground.

He could just… not purify it correctly. That’s an option. Tadashi wouldn’t know the difference. He wouldn’t know to blame Kei when the rock eventually rejected itself and started projecting the negative energies it’d absorbed.

Kei could send him on his way, hand him a bag of rock salt and clean clothes, and never see him again. He could keep the water for himself, and his own _misogi_. He would never have to know what would happen after they part ways.

He didn’t _have_ to utilize all his supplies, leave himself open and vulnerable, in a state where he couldn’t help himself. He didn’t _have_ to make himself helpless.

The memory flashes through his mind, unbidden.

A hand, reaching out from the blackness. Clawing at the ground.

He’s not helpless anymore, he tells himself quietly. He knows where to get the things he needs, and knows how to barter for them. He’s not ignorant anymore.

There’s no need for anyone to die because of his own lack of action.

He unscrews the lid of the jar very carefully, and uses it to scoop the makeshift amulet off of the floor, much like he would scoop a particularly large insect onto a piece of paper before flinging it out the window.

He lets the crystal tumble into the water; he screws the lid on as quickly as he can, cutting off the high pitched whistle the amulet was beginning to make underwater.

Around the glass edges of the jar, the water roils like it’s boiling, and the glass shakes. Kei sets it carefully into the sink, where it can tumble off of the shelf or counter and break—he hadn’t been warned about the immediate effects of _misogi_ on sealed objects the first time he’d dropped something into the pure well-water.

The jar had rolled off of the counter and shattered, releasing a very agitated spirit in Kei’s kitchen. Iwaizumi had roared in laughter when Kei went back the next day, battered and agitated and down at least fifty gallons of ritual water; Kei never wants to repeat the experience. He swears he still finds broken glass to this day.

He runs a hand through his hair and sighs for what seems like the fiftieth time that hour, contemplating the next course of action:

Tadashi obviously wants him to tell him about spirits and exorcising them, but…

Kei stiffens, every hair on his neck rising as the scent of corpses overwhelms him again. It’s stronger now, undiluted. 

He hears a crow caw outside of his window. It continues shrieking and the scent and presence grows stronger. The scar on his shoulder burns and aches, his fear as pain that drips into his bones.

It’s the scent and presence of a very, very potent spirit—Kei can only identify it as that of a demon, and it’s one he’s vaguely familiar with. Kei backs up against the counter; whatever it is, it is in his _apartment_  and _it’s coming closer._ Towards him. 

“Thanks for the clothes, Tsukishima—they’re a bit big, but it’s nice to wear something clean, you know?”

Kei’s eyes track to his guest. It takes him a moment to process the information that’s hitting his senses: the smell, the pressure at the back of his skull, the crow’s cry and the sound of wings—they’re all connected.

It’s _Tadashi_.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes on some terms/practices used in the fic: 
> 
> - _Kodama_ : Tree spirits.  
> - _O-fuda_ : Talismans hung in homes or private residences to protect from general harm. While generally issued by Shinto shrines, Kei gets his from a different source in-fic.  
> - _Misogi_ : a purification ritual preformed by standing under a cold waterfall; a chant is preformed. Again, it has been adapted in-ficverse.  
> - **Salt** is used as a general purifier in Shinto rituals.  
>  - **Quartz** crystals can be used to absorb, enhance, and store energy. It is also used for psychic protection and can counter negative energy. Crystals can typically be charged and cleared by allowing them to sit in sun or moonlight. [ More information. ](http://meanings.crystalsandjewelry.com/crystals-healing-howto-articles/)


	2. Recollection

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up, an additional tag for implied rape/molestation has been added and comes into effect this chapter, as well as the ones about institutionalization.

Fear grips Kei like a vice around his neck. The kitchen counter bites against the small of his back, and his hands go back to brace himself.

The young man in front of him, one self-proclaimed Yamaguchi Tadashi, is unquestionably inhuman. Everything from his aura to the scent carried on his skin reeks of demonic spirits. Kei thinks he’s been tricked, finally.

The unassuming form, the way his wards broke on his headphones, how easy it was to dispel the spirits around Tadashi—all of it was a set up.

His hands scramble behind him, searching for something, anything. “Get away from me!” he shouts. He throws his will into the words.

Tadashi frowns and tips his head, “Um—Tsukishima, a-are you okay?” he asks. His fingers start to worry at the hem of his borrowed sweater.

Kei presses even harder against the counter. He’s too afraid—his words hadn’t thrown a ward up at all. His fingers catch on the remaining bag of salt, and he flings it forward, showering his kitchen, and Tadashi, in rock salt. “I said— _get away from me, spirit!”_

Tadashi bites down on his lip and gives a small whimper. He clamps his hands against his collar, fingers curling into the material of his sweater. “W-what are you doing, please stop!” he begs. “I thought you were going to help me!”

Kei hauls himself up onto the counter as Tadashi takes a step forward. He grabs the _o-fuda_ that hangs behind his kitchen curtains and brandishes it in front of him. “I know what ‘helping’ is for spirits—like _hell_ I’ll help,” he snarls, feeling hysteria and desperation claw up his throat.

He’s not going to end up like him. He’s not going to do it. He won’t. He knows all too well what spirits like this equate help to.

Death, devastation, hauled straight to the far shore with them, to suffer and warp. He won’t. He’s not.

“But I’m not,” Tadashi wails. “Please, Tsukishima, you’re the only person I’ve come across who’s ever bothered to help me. I’m human,” he urges, stepping up to the counter where Kei crouches.

He leans up and touches the _o-fuda_ , then takes it from Kei. “If I weren’t human, could I do this?” he asks frantically, shaking the fabric slip in the air. “Could I?” he asks again, pressing it to his forehead. Desperate tears leak from his eyes.

The fear eases from around Kei’s throat, but he still remains on the counter, ready to do—something, he’s already forgotten the next thing his desperate mind had conjured for escape. He studies Tadashi carefully.

The young man is tall and thin; the borrowed clothes hang on him in ways that make Kei think that if he were healthy, he’d be broad and wiry. As it is, he’s just gaunt and pitiful looking, with shaggy hair and wan olive skin that looks greenish from malnourishment and poor keep. An average face with lidded, almost-catlike eyes and freckles. Unassuming—Kei could probably pass this man on the street and not look twice at him, normally.

If it wasn’t for the presence that screamed _‘I’m a demon! I’ll devour your soul with a smile!’_ , that is. He’s not even sure if an _o-fuda_ would even work on something like that. …They would, wouldn’t they? The ones made by Iwaizumi, right?

Kei swallows hard; he’s not happy being faced with how much his own stubbornness has left him open. “ _If_ you’re human,” he hisses, “Why on earth does your presence reek of… y'know, _evil_?”

Tadashi rubs at his eyes with the _o-fuda_. “It’s not normally this bad,” he whispers. His voice cracks on his words. “But I thought you’d already realized—everyone before, they all knew right away, so I thought, I thought you didn’t _care_.”

“What the hell are you?”

“I’m human,” Tadashi insists. “It’s just… I…” His throat bobs as he swallows. He carefully places the charm on the counter by Kei’s foot. His eyes dart around the room.  
  
“It’s this,” Tadashi says finally. He hooks his fingers around the collar of his sweater and tugs it down on one side, exposing prominent collar bones. His skin is mottled with deep purple bruising.

Dark against his skin, shines a black mark shaped like a crow’s feather. It’s shiny like fresh ink, and the skin around it is inflamed, an angry red that looks like it would burn Kei’s fingers if he touched it. Black fluid and blood weeps from the mark.

Kei reaches out hesitantly, brushing his fingertips against Tadashi’s collar as if he were guided by strings. Tadashi flinches violently and whimpers at the touch, hand darting out to catch Kei’s wrist. “Don’t touch it!”

Too late; Kei feels the dampness of blood and the oozing black miasma on his fingers, burning as it seeps into his skin. The tips of his index and middle fingers turn black and smart; pain travels up his arm and lodges into his skull.

Kei cries out, pain making his eyes water and his stomach churn violently. He wrenches his hand away from Tadashi and wraps the charm around his fingers. It dulls the pain a little and takes away the worst of the nausea, allowing him to slide clumsily from the counter.

Behind him, Tadashi starts stammering out apologies; Kei tunes him out and stumbles out of the kitchen and down the hall. He throws open the lid of the washing machine and sticks his hand into the water. The pain and black ebb from him and turns the water a dirty gray.

Kei turns to find Tadashi hovering behind him. He hisses and slides down onto the floor, cradling his hand to his chest. “What the _fuck_ was that?”

“The reason you think I’m not human,” Tadashi says softly, rubbing his chest self-consciously. “It… normally doesn’t bleed like that. But. Whatever it was you had me wash with… it… bothered it.”

Kei looks up at Tadashi. The young man returns his gaze briefly, before looking away nervously.

“I think that maybe, you should explain yourself,” Kei says slowly; he’ll figure out where to go from there. He stands, and ushers Tadashi back into the kitchen. 

* * *

 

Kei shakes out the rest of the pain from his hand, still throbbing five minutes later. He sneaks glimpses over at Tadashi, where he's settled at the kitchen table. By this point, the polite host etiquette his mother had drilled into him as a child had kicked in, and he’s pouring tea for them both. Tadashi’s picking through a plate of cake; he watches the way the other man carefully sets all the strawberries aside.

Kei doesn’t like him.

He carries the tea tray over to the table and sets it down, carefully pouring out a cup for Tadashi. “Here,” he says, pushing the mug towards Tadashi.

“Ah, thanks,” Tadashi says, sipping it slowly. It manages to bring a little color to his cheeks, Kei thinks as he pours cream and sugar into his own tea: Like that, Tadashi doesn’t look quite as dead.

Kei settles into his own chair, serving himself another slice of cake. 

“Um, do… do you want these?” Tadashi offers, gesturing to his pile of strawberries with his fork.

Maybe Kei does like him, just a little.

Kei nods silently, watching as Tadashi scrapes the pile onto his saucer, timidly nudging it across the table to the blond.

“Thank you, by the way, for the food and clothes,” Tadashi whispers. “It’s very nice. You… you’re very nice, you know?”

“My apartment would have been flooded with spirits, otherwise,” Kei says dismissively. He hasn’t made up his mind on what to do about Tadashi—if the other man knew that he’d contemplated allowing him to die for a few moments, he doubts Tadashi would call him nice.

He’s still not even sure what compelled him to save him from the alley. Maybe it was the outstretched hand, but then, he’d run for the alleyway before he’d seen it.

He takes a bite of cake, letting it sit in his mouth for a moment before chewing. “So. That thing.”

“Oh. Yes. That,” Tadashi says, setting his cup down.

Kei rather thinks he looks like he’s about to be sick. He hopes that’s not the case—he doesn’t want to have to clean _that_ up as well. Being a polite host only goes so far, he whispers to the image of his mother in the back of his mind.

Tadashi rolls the fork between his thumb and forefinger. The sugary film the cream left on his tongue feels too slick for his mouth and suddenly the food—the first real, rich thing he’d had in ages—sat over heavy in his stomach. His collar burns and smarts. He can feel the heat rising off of it on the underside of his chin.

He swallows hard. He fidgets. Runs a hand through his hair. Looks up through his lashes at Kei; the man stares at him, face guarded and eyes hard. Tadashi rather thinks he’s beautiful; he can’t shake the image of a vengeful god from his mind. He doesn’t doubt that if his story doesn’t move the man in front of him, that he’ll be cast right back outside, worse off than he was before.

He can’t bear to have hope taken from him one more time. “I…” he starts hesitantly. “It’s a…”

He opens his mouth to explain: it’s a mark, a brand. It signals he’s _property_. But the words don’t come. Instead bile and a choked sob rises from his mouth. He covers his mouth with a shaking hand, remembering the way those cold hands had held him down. How much it had hurt to be cut into, to have his mouth and arms and legs forced open as promises were whispered to him.

He swallows back the acid burning the back of his throat. This really is his last hope. In eight months, he would be… He didn’t want to! He didn’t want it!

He shakes hard, biting down on the inside of his palm. The pain takes away the images that haunt him.

“Are you… are you going to be sick? Do you need a bag?”

Tadashi shakes his head and swallows again. There’s something about the irritated tone of voice Kei speaks to him with that calms him. He reaches out and grips his mug with shaking fingers. Heat seeps through the ceramic and into his fingers. He brings it to his lips and drinks.

He still has time. There is still time. He’s still alive, after all.

“Once,” Tadashi starts hesitantly. “Once upon a time—well, it wasn’t so long ago—there was a boy.”

It’s easier like this. It’s easier to distance himself from the story, pretend it wasn’t real. There are things that, even now, he has trouble believing. It’s safer, softer, kinder to not force them.

“He wasn’t anything special. He wasn’t born into a big family or a wealthy one, or with any special powers,” Tadashi says, tapping his fingernails against the mug. It’s been so long since he’s seen them clean that the action mesmerizes him. His cuticles are still ragged and his nails are splintered from where he’d dug them into the mossy concrete earlier, but they’re _clean_.

It’s such a novel idea. To be clean on the outside when every fiber of his soul and being was tainted.

“He lived near a shrine, and would go to play there sometimes,” Tadashi continued. “He’d hear things there, sometimes. People calling for the boy, telling him to come here; when he turned around, nothing was there. Sometimes, he’d see things from the corner of his eye. He told the priest there, who nodded and rubbed his head and told him that some people were just like that. And the boy didn’t worry about it anymore.”

Tadashi watches carefully for Kei’s reactions. All the other man does is take a sip of tea and shrug noncommittally. Tadashi sighs.

“The boy didn’t have any friends. He was bullied when he went to school, and there wasn’t anyone who stood up for him. Not even his own parents. He tried everything to fit in; watching the newest shows on TV and being friendly despite being picked on to joining a sports club. But he was slow and weak and nothing he did helped. …nothing was enough to stop them. He couldn’t do it by himself.”

“So… The little boy got desperate. By that point, he wasn’t so little anymore,” Tadashi whispers. “And the bullies weren’t so innocent. It wasn’t just pulled hair and being taunted anymore.”

Being hit with stones. Being fed rotten food. Burns and cuts and needles and hands where they didn’t need to be, where he didn’t want them to be. Blindfolds and nasty words and endless phone calls and emails and flowers on his desk.

“He went to the shrine,” Tadashi continues softly. “And he prayed and prayed and prayed. Every day. For someone to come and help him. He wanted to die. He wanted someone to love him. One day, someone came up to him while he was crying. It was an older boy, a high schooler. He said his name was Shimada, that he lived nearby and often saw him—had seen what the other boys did to him— and he… He said he wanted to help.”

Tadashi doesn’t think he can really explain just how desperate the feeling was, how intense the relief that someone, _anyone_ , had come up to talk to him. Had said nice things to him. Shimada had been so kind to him, when he was quiet and awkward and a gawky middle schooler. Wiped his face off when it was smeared with dirt and blood. Taught him how to block the calls from his phone and played volleyball with him. Told him nice things instead of the caustic taunts that he was so used to.

Tadashi grew dependent on those words, desperately so, that he never noticed when they started to twist.

“The boy was so… he was so blind,” Tadashi says. His hands shake. He sets them against his lap and curls them into the fabric of his pants. “Shimada asked that the boy tell no one about him. Told him that he wasn’t supposed to be on the shrine property because he’d gotten in trouble for accidentally breaking something. That people would say nasty things about their relationship, because they couldn’t _see_.”

Tadashi remembers being a first year in high school, with Shimada’s hand on his cheek.

 _See_ , he’d whispered, _I told you you could do it._

He’d tucked Tadashi’s hair behind his ear so tenderly and leaned forward to kiss his forehead. _No one else sees the potential in you that I do_.

“And the boy believed him,” Tadashi murmurs. It makes his stomach roil to think about now. “I may have—the boy could have loved him. Loved Makoto. But, when the boy finally started making friends, when he finally got comfortable in himself, Makoto got… it hurt.”

Shimada Makoto’s voice became the voice in his head, whispering when he was out with his new friends, _they don’t like you, they want you gone, they don’t like you_.

“The things the boy saw out of the corner of his eye, they got more distinct. He grew distracted, anxious.”

His new friends’ faces contorting in confusion. Shadows beckoning him forward; Shimada’s voice. His voice. He was sure something was following him.

“I… he started hearing crows, like wings,” Tadashi whispers. “Shimada grew darker. Sometimes, it looked like his fingers were black when he grabbed for my hand.”

He peeks up at Kei and is shocked to see the blond’s hands are trembling just as badly as his own. “Tsukishima?”

“G… go on,” Kei murmurs. “It’s just…” He shakes his head and waves a hand for Tadashi to continue. He isn’t an idiot—he knows where this story is going, and he knows it all too well.

“The boy turned sixteen. That’s when… He held me down. I couldn’t move—it hurt so much,” Tadashi says. He stares at a point behind Kei, not really seeing anything but the images in his own head. “He grabbed me and held me down and said that he was going to make me his. Forever. That he was waiting, that no one could ever… ever love me like he did. Smoke—it was like smoke, his words came out of his mouth, I could _see_ them, and they poured into my mouth, forcing it open… I… He kept saying things like that, over and over and I couldn’t move or fight— I was paralyzed.”

He still sees the kind, round face contorting into something inhuman, can see the stars fade in and out through Shimada’s form. His hands weren’t even holding him down, but tracing over him. Weights like stones crushed his hands and feet and sometimes when he sleeps, he wakes up with the feeling still, the sight of Shimada’s mouth stretching further than it should, smoke pouring out of it.

He covers his mouth with his hand, choking back on his words. “He said—he said I was his—only his—and he kissed me—over and over and I couldn’t scream or tell him to stop,” he cries. “He grabbed my uniform and tore it open—I can hear it, and he marked me. It hurt, it hurt, like he was branding me, and I finally screamed, I just wanted him to go away, so I screamed, I screamed so hard my voice was gone for days after—I told him to leave me alone and he finally—it was like something pushed him back, and he just smirked. He said he’d come back for me. When I was of age—”

He rakes his hands through his hair, pulling at the roots. “The priests found me like that, and they took me to one of the older maidens and she said that—he’d been a demon, and that—I was going to die. There was nothing they could do. My parents—they let my parents know—and they let them—do horrible things that night to… to exorcise it and no one could.”

“I was so scared. I was so scared. I could see awful, awful things. They pulled at me, just like those boys did, just like Makoto did—they hurt me, but no one saw them. Sometimes the priests could but—my parents—didn’t, they couldn’t handle it. They said I got what I deserved for being out late at night, and was faking to—to cover up I got raped—and that I was telling stories and they sent me to this place. A hospital,” Tadashi says, words rushing out of him.

He’d never told the whole story before, but something in the way that Kei’s face is contorting forces him to push it out, get it out and over with. “I saw things, I saw them, ghosts—people doctors had killed and pushed and tormented, girls with bloody noses and dead eyes who cried over and over about how their thoughts were taken from them. They whispered to me and I was cold all the time, I couldn’t talk, I always cried, they called me crazy but they were _right there,_ no one could see them, and they wanted me to join them. I bled all the time, because they grabbed at me, I couldn’t—I couldn’t do anything because they strapped me down at night. The drugs made it worse, I was always screaming. I wasn’t crazy, I wasn’t crazy, I swear to god I’m not,” he begs, “Please, Tsukishima, _I’m not crazy_.”

Kei flinches at the urgency in Tadashi’s tone. Tadashi looks crazed, desperate, hands in his hair and hunched over as he cries out, voice fading into harsh, wracking sobs. Kei understands. He remembers crying in a corner under the stairs, the sounds of volleyballs echoing in the corridor, the edges of bones digging into his palms. He wasn’t crazy, either, even though everyone said he was. 

“You ran away, didn’t you?” Kei asks softly. He does something he has never done before; he reaches out and presses the tips of his fingers to Tadashi’s arm. “From the hospital. I don’t blame you; it must have been very old, to have had that many spirits.”

“…you believe me?”

The incredulous way Tadashi asks kindles something tender inside of Kei, reminds him of himself as a child with dirty hands and swollen eyes. “I do.” 

Another sob shakes its way out of Tadashi. Kei presses his entire hand to the other boy’s arm, gently taking his wrist into his fingers. “How old are you now?”

“N…nineteen,” Tadashi hiccups. “I don’t want to die, Tsu—Tsukki—I don’t want to! I want to live, I don't want him to take me!”

Kei bites down hard on the inside of his lip. He puts Tadashi’s hand back down on the table. “I know,” he says quietly. 

Kei doesn’t want to die. Tadashi doesn’t want to either. Kei is sure that all the countless people possessed by spirits and lured across to the far shore didn’t want to either.  He’s sure so many people don’t want to die. It’s cruel, what happened to Tadashi. In another life, that could have been Kei. Or maybe, it already is him. He thinks of the sound of wings and the loud alarm of a railway crossing, and he thinks, that maybe, Tadashi isn't the only life that particular spirit of his, Shimada Makoto, has ruined. 

“Yamaguchi,” Kei says quietly. “I'm sorry, but I… I can’t help you.”

Tadashi flinches and looks up, fear in his eyes, as well as a raw grief. Kei is reminded so much of the look he was given across a stadium years ago that it chills him to his core; this person, at least… he can help, just a little. He can help this time. 

“But,” Kei says, covering Tadashi’s hand with his own. “I can take you to someone who can.”

 


	3. Pilgrimage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait! Originally my intentions were to have the whole of this story done by Halloween but uh, life happened and I'd like to spend time fleshing out some of the thinner plot points. So! 
> 
> For those who don't read Sunflowers and Fireflies, I stated there that my goal is to alternate between this and that equally. We'll see how that goes.  
> Sorry for the wait and the short chapter! And Tsukki. Sorry about Tsukki's roundabout sort-of-pretentious meandering into quantum physics.

“So where are we going?”

Kei sighs as he winds his scarf around his neck. “Like I said, to someone who can help,” he murmurs. He’s too exhausted to explain more just yet; the coffee runs sluggish in his veins, not yet perking him up from his long night of nightmares.

They were vivid again. He’d never been able to get rid of them, but time and sleeping pills had blurred the edges. The _omamori_ under his bed had further smeared the memories into watery grays and black.

Kei supposes it’s because of the boy behind him. It’s not Tadashi’s _fault_ , but his presence, his story… they all dredged up bodies from the black waters of his memories. He’d spent the night tossing and turning, haunted by the full color display in his mind:

The crossing alarm, the rattle of wheels on the track and the sound of an entire flock taking flight. Crows rearing up behind him on the road… Something cold brushing across the back of his hand and the hand that stretched out to him. Wide amber eyes. So much blood.

_So_ _much_ blood; it was so warm on his face, mixed with viscera. It filled his open mouth as he went to warn him, wet and thick with gore. He could make-believe it was tears and vomit and not human. Not the remains of the person’s whose hand was pulled from his grasp.

Kei would wake up each time, only to fall back asleep and relive it over and over. Dawn had brought a new dream, of a half-shadowed face and wide-open, horror-struck eyes in an arena of cheers. Of pale fingers opening up around white fragments of bone, and the urge to run. Of laughing and being called crazy, over and over again. He wasn’t crazy.

Neither of them were crazy, Kei thinks. Not in the least bit.

Not yet.

“So, _who_ are we going to see, Tsukki?” Tadashi’s question butts into Kei’s thoughts.

Kei turns and regards Tadashi skeptically. The boy grins up at him from where he’s crouched, tying the laces on his old, battered converse. The collar of his sweater slips as he moves, revealing the gauze they’d padded and wrapped Tadashi’s shoulder with to ease any friction against the teen’s brand and spare Kei’s shirts from blood.

Tadashi could fit well enough into Kei’s clothes, but the decrepit state of his shoes stood in stark contrast to the manufactured wear on his borrowed jeans; Kei feels terrible he can’t provide a pair of shoes that aren’t falling apart for Tadashi, especially considering how much walking they’re going to have to do. But Kei’s shoes are at least two sizes too large for Tadashi, and really, the only danger the shoes pose is falling apart mid-step.

“I’m not sure how I feel about this ‘Tsukki, Tsukki’ thing you’ve started,” Kei mutters into the material of his scarf.

“Well, since you’re helping me, we should at least be friendly, right?” Tadashi chirps, “And what a better way to be friendly than nicknames!”

Kei purses his lips. “I wouldn’t know,” he mutters. He fits his headphones on over his scarf; the ward on them is still broken, but the weight of them on his neck is comforting. He reaches into the bowl where he drops his eyes and grabs a handful of small crystals. “Hands,” he orders.

Tadashi tips his head to the side, blinking. “What?” he asks. He holds his hands out obediently anyway. Kei’s chest aches at the absolute naïve trust Tadashi has in him. For all he’s been through, Tadashi should have been more jaded, more afraid, more guarded—Kei… Kei certainly ended up that way. He isn’t sure what’s keeping Tadashi’s hope alive. But, it’s refreshing.

In an annoying sort of way.

Kei drops them into Tadashi’s palms. “Protection,” he murmurs. “You’ve been purified, more or less, but these have small wards on them, and quartz is good for dispelling spirits, too.”

“Oh, thank you,” Tadashi murmurs, eyeing the crystals curiously. “Why is that?”

“Energy,” Kei says. “C’mon. It’s a bit of a hassle to get where we’re going, so we can talk on the way there.”

Kei lets his hand hover over the doorknob until he’s certain Tadashi has finished pocketing the quartz and buttoning up his coat. “Look, I don’t know if you’ve realized it but if you see a spirit, don’t pay attention to it. Looking at them, being frightened of them, it makes their attraction to you worse. They’re more likely to notice you if you look at them.”

“Really?”

This, Kei thinks, is probably why he’d stumbled across Tadashi in the state he had. No one had been around him to help him; Kei is suddenly struck with how lucky he’d been, despite all that _had_ happened to him, to have been passed into the world of mediums so quickly and so young. Not to look at them was the first thing he had ever learned. “Yeah,” he answers.

He pulls the door open, and steps out. It’s chilly, but bright. It’s going to be a good spring, he thinks idly. “Haven’t you ever noticed that when someone suggests that, maybe, a place is haunted, more people start to report the same?”

Tadashi slips past Kei, and Kei turns to lock the door.

“Not really,” Tadashi answers honestly. “I always thought it was a subconscious suggestion.”

“Sometimes it certainly is,” Kei agrees. He fits his hands into the pockets and motions with his chin for Tadashi to follow him. He walks quickly; he can hear Tadashi jogging to keep up with him. “But mostly, it’s because whatever’s there has been noticed, and it gets stronger.”

“Um… I’m not sure I follow,” Tadashi murmurs apologetically.

Kei shrugs, “I mean, the way I understand it, it’s not necessarily the way other people would. I’ve been told it’s too complicated.”

Tadashi speeds up a bit so he can keep pace with Kei. “I’m desperate for any sort of understanding,” he urges.

Kei nods and presses his face into his scarf. “Well,” he murmurs. They halt at an intersection; he reaches out to press the walk signal. “Those trees—quick. Tell me what the things in them look like.”

Tadashi takes a quick glimpse over at the trees that line the sidewalk. White bulbous creatures wander in and out of the leaves, wide, dark, pupiless eyes staring forward. “Ah! …they look like the ones from _Mononoke_!”

“Yes,” Kei answers. The signal changes and he strides forward. “Because they’re young. Those trees can’t be more than, oh… twenty? Years old. People have engrained that existences’ appearance into their minds, and that’s the form they take.”

“…If I were to imagine them as looking like something else, would they?”

“No,” Kei snorts derisively. “That’s not enough attention for them to change form for. Not spirits like that. Oh, here, I’ll pay for your ticket,” he adds, as they come up on the train station’s entrance.

They climb down the stairs and Kei buys the tickets. Tadashi tries to see what stop he buys them for, but Kei leans anxiously from foot to foot as the screen loads, and he misses it. It’s not terribly expensive, so it can’t be far. He thinks.

Kei passes Tadashi his ticket, and they move through the turnstile. Tadashi grabs the back of Kei’s jacket once he sees the interior of the station.

“I know,” Kei mutters. “Just… focus on me, and not… them.”

The platform is littered with a roiling black fog. It swirls and condenses into strange shapes—eyes, hands, a mouth; small creatures bud off of the darker places, slick like oil, and settle on people’s shoulders. A high whine of unintelligible gibberish presses in on their ears.

Tadashi curls his fingers tighter into Kei’s jacket and looks up; he focuses on what Kei’s saying, and how pale his cheeks have grown.

“The fact is, those things are dependent on us. No… that’s not it, but the way they exist is closely tied to how we live,” Kei says slowly. He stares ahead to the other side of the tracks.

A man stands, looking listlessly towards the tunnel. Blood seeps out of his nose and mouth. Kei can’t take his eyes from it. The man turns his head slowly, revealing that half of his face is gone entirely. His jaw hangs free on the bare side. A single, eyeless socket stares straight ahead; if the man had eyes, they would be focused on Kei. He raises his hand and beckons forward.

**_Come here. Come here._ **

Kei doesn’t care. He wants to tear the rest of the man’s face off. A train pulls into the station, cutting off contact. He averts his eyes, and looks down at Tadashi.

The other man stares up at him, brows drawn. “Tsukki, you’re white as a sheet,” he says softly. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” Kei lies. “In any case, have you heard of the observer effect?”

“I don’t think that I have,” Tadashi admits. “I never finished school.”

“Ah,” Kei murmurs, “Well. I’m not really sure if it’s covered in school. Anyway, the observer effect refers to when the act of observing a system will change its state. Sometimes it’s referred to how, when you have to measure the air pressure in a tire, some of the pressure has to be released to insert the measuring device. Sometimes, it’s used in quantum physics.”

“I really don’t think they covered _that_ in school,” Tadashi says with a small laugh. “I know that much.”

Kei shrugs and continues. “Special interests, then, anyway: surely you’ve heard people talk about the particles that change their properties when they’re observed?”

“I… think so,” Tadashi guesses.

Kei snorts and waves a hand; Tadashi’s tone makes it very obvious he hasn’t heard of it. It doesn’t matter much to Kei. “The details aren’t terribly important—I don’t feel like giving a full discourse to the intricacies of quantum physics—”

It’s Tadashi’s turn to snort, and Kei feels his lips twitch up into a small smile. “In any case,” he says over Tadashi’s laughter, “There are experiments in which, by the act of observing, the outcome is changed. That, when something—not a human, mind you— observes the outcome, they’ve forced the particle to act a certain way, instead of existing in a dual state.”

“…And this relates back to the spirits, how?” Tadashi asks. He crosses his arms, studying Kei carefully; he’s not really sure what the other man is getting at, although he seems convinced it’s important. Though, he’s starting to wonder why just knowing it’s real wasn’t enough for him… or for Kei.

“Don’t you think spirits are rather like subatomic particles?” Kei asks.

Tadashi shudders at the look that flits over Kei’s face—it’s creepy. He’s almost grinning, like it’s the most peaceful observation to make about the world. “…I don’t know,” he says quietly, scuffing his foot against the ground.

Another train pulls into the station; Kei looks at his ticket. “Ah, this is ours, let’s go.”

Tadashi swallows hard and watches tentatively as people start to pile into the train. He catches Kei’s wrist. “Is… is it, ah, safe? For us? To go?”

Kei tips his head to the side, “You mean onto the train? Yeah. There’s too many people on it for spirits to really notice any singular person; everyone’s looking somewhere else and not thinking of much.”

“O-oh,” Tadashi murmurs, heart hammering in his throat. He doesn’t like crowded places or places where he can’t slip away quickly; they leave him feeling trapped. He clenches his jaw and lets Kei tug him forward into the crowded train car.

The bars of the seats press against the back of his thighs, and Tadashi feels precariously close to falling.  
  
Kei reaches out and braces himself on the bar behind Tadashi. “Steady. You look like you’re going to faint,” he mutters.

Tadashi concentrates on not doing just that.

The train lurches as it pulls from the station, and they stand in silence. Two stops. Three. Four.

The people start thinning out after that. They move to seats; Tadashi turns and watches the scenery slip away, underground tracks fading to suburbs to countryside. Tadashi starts trying to count the cows, but turns after the sight of a particularly nasty spirit dragging themselves by the hands, spine dangling out behind it, nearly empties his stomach of the omelet Kei’d made for breakfast.

Kei glances at Tadashi’s pale face and the way his eyes are trained on his knees and sighs. “It’s all about intent, energy. By focusing your thoughts—energy—onto a spirit, you’ve forced it to become corporeal for you,” he says, continuing like there hadn’t been a nearly hour long gap in their conversation.

Tadashi turns and looks at Kei. The other man has his fingers laced in his lap, but he’s staring at the floor like his intent is to burn a hole in the metal and plastic with his gaze alone.

Kei is intense; Tadashi has already figured that out. He’s strong too. And knowledgeable. But all of his information is focused on avoiding spirits, and Tadashi itches for more. There’s no way he can just _avoid_ being spirited away by Shimada.

“All of it, it’s about energy exchanges. _Life_ itself is about exchanging energy. You eat things that have struggled to live in your struggle, and likewise, just because you’ve died, doesn’t mean that struggle is over,” Kei murmurs. “Nothing in this world is wasted or destroyed; the soul, the energy behind that, has to go somewhere once its form has wasted away. Dead bodies decompose, or are cremated, and turned to new forms of energy. Your wishes were energy, dispersed into a system; like burning creates heat, your desires created an energy that your demon, Shimada, wanted. Without bodies to create warmth, or energy, the souls and consciousnesses—our… collective emotions, they… _long_ for things.”

Tadashi watches as Kei’s hands shudder and tighten in his lap. All of it, truly, is too esoteric for Tadashi to understand, but listening to Kei speak is… intoxicating itself. “What sort of things do they long for?”

“To continue existing,” Kei murmurs. His voice drops, “Or to… not exist, sometimes.”

“To move on?”

“Something of the sort. Spirits can move through the cycle, become new sorts of energy. You’ll see when we get there.” Kei pauses and looks up. “This is our stop coming up.”

Tadashi watches Kei pensively; he struggles to understand what the blond told him. What he’s trying to tell him. There’s something in the way that Kei speaks about spirits that makes him think that, somehow, Kei is more like him than just the ability they share.

Maybe that’s why it’s not just enough to know it’s real, that what’s happening to them is real. Maybe that’s why Kei looked into these things that make Tadashi’s head spin, that barely make sense. So Kei could understand what happened.

Tadashi wonders if the blond ever figured it out. He doesn’t think there’s really any understanding for himself, but maybe there was for Kei.

The train pulls into the station and they’re the only commuters to step out of the car. The train departs without taking any new people. Tadashi peers around the old fashioned station; everything seems just a touch dirty. Once they leave, he understands why.

The town—Tadashi didn’t catch its name—is small, with old fashioned storefronts and cracked sidewalks. He can see past the edge of town from the sidewalk in front of the station; past it, the horizon is farms and dirt roads.

“This way,” Kei advises. “We’ve got to go shopping first.”

“What?” Tadashi asks, following after Kei as the other man starts off at a brisk walk down the cracked sidewalks. “Where are we going, Tsukki?”

“To get an offering.”

* * *

 

Turns out, when Kei meant ‘an offering’, he didn’t mean food, like any normal, sane person. For some reason, it meant a huge, heavy, very foul smelling bag of manure from a dusty seed and feed store where the clerk knew Kei by name.

“Why do I have to carry this, Tsukki?” Tadashi whines, dragging the bag along behind him on the dolly the clerk had provided for them for a small rental fee. “It _stinks._ ”

Kei looks over his shoulder at Tadashi, mouth twitching in amusement. “Well, frankly, so do you,” he says, a smirk finally curving up the edges of his lips.

Tadashi’s caught between being offended and being strangely glad that Kei’s dropped whatever issue it was that had him so icy on the train. “I took a shower! And of course I stink, you’re making me carry manure! What sort of shrine takes—well, poop—as an offering?”

“You’ll see,” Kei says, laughing. “It’s more of a sanctuary than a shrine, though. And they’re going to smell your mark, regardless. But if he lets you in before he senses it, he’s more likely to help. Also, if it looks like the fertilizer’s from you, well. It all just works in your favor.”

“But it’s _heavy_ , Tsukki,” Tadashi whines.

Kei laughs again, a real sound that sounds like bells to Tadashi. “I can take it when it gets too heavy for you,” he says. “I’ve made this trip alone before, so it’s not a huge deal.”

“Really?” Tadashi asks, peering at the way the path they’re taking crumbles into a dusty track that cuts through a field of hay that’s taller than the both of them. The dolly begins to shake his arm as they walk and the air is cold and crisp in his throat.

“Yeah. The first time, someone was with me,” Kei answers, kicking a stray rock. “But lots of times, it’s just me. It’s sort of a… ugh, well, it’s a pilgrimage.”

“A… pilgrimage?” Tadashi repeats quietly. It’s rare to hear the word these days. The way Kei says it makes their trip seem even heavier; the dolly rattles and catches at his ankles. He stumbles against Kei’s back, cheek pressed to the sun-warmed fabric of the blond’s jacket.

“Here, I’ll take it now,” Kei says, sliding away once Tadashi’s caught his balance again. Their fingers brush as Kei pulls the dolly handle from Tadashi’s fingers.

Tadashi swallows. Kei’s fingers are warm and feel like sparks against his skin.

 It makes his collar throb. The blond oozes power; it’s not like his own sluggish struggle against the spirits. Kei had admitted previously that he’d found it suspicious at how quickly the spirits had retreated in the alleyway, but Tadashi thinks that perhaps, Kei has far more power than he thinks he does.

Or maybe Kei _knows_ he has that much power, and is unwilling to use it. Tadashi is uncertain.

They take turns, back and forth, pulling the dolly along. They leave the farm fields behind, the track growing less and less distinct as brush starts to grow from the high grass, then trees. They leave the crisp sunlight behind and enter a wood, light green and soft.

Small shrines peek from the undergrowth, old and crumbling. Kodama peer at them through trees, chattering like squirrels.

“We’re here,” Kei says, pointing ahead of him.

The path ends unceremoniously. Tadashi can hear the kodama grow louder, and underneath, there’s a sound of a stream. A cottage sinks into the foliage, old stone and thatched roofing blending in with the forest around it. Tadashi squints, and can see the length of it stretch, and the light flash of traditional sliding doors beneath ivy. The cleanliness of it coupled with the overgrowth almost disquiets him. It feels that there are two cottages superimposed—one that’s run down and rotting and nearly imperceptible and one that’s clean and tidy and fresh.

“There was nothing there,” Tadashi says.

Kei shakes his head, “You just didn’t see it. It blends in, a bit.”

Tadashi sighs and closes his eyes in frustration at the vague answer. His arms ache from dragging the dolly over such uneven terrain. His feet, however, are fine. This is not the farthest he’s ever had to travel, and while their pace may have been brisk to some, Tadashi had once run ten miles at a dead sprint for his life. His mind, however is exhausted.

He reels with the faint knowledge that maybe, there hadn’t been anything at the end of the path before. He’s been out of his depth for a while now, but this tickles a fear deep in his stomach that makes his brand throb and closes his throat.

“What is this place?”

Kei blinks and shrugs. “A home,” he answers. “A shrine. A store. A garden.”

“Do you ever explain anything outright?” Tadashi demands.

“Only the things I understand,” Kei answers.

“So nothing at all?” Tadashi shoots back.

Kei laughs again, the nice clear laugh from earlier. It softens his face and makes him look younger. “Exactly,” he answers, knocking swiftly at the door. “You’re quick on the uptake.”

Tadashi grins to himself, pleased that he’d managed to amuse the other man. Pleasure ebbs away to curiosity as the door slides open with a rattle.

He peers over Kei’s shoulder. A shortish man glares at them both.

He’s young, but older than them both—Tadashi guesses he’s about twenty. His hair is in unruly tufts and his skin is dark with sun, plaid sleeves rolled up to his arms, the knees of his jeans stained green. Dirt covers his hands in thick clumps. Tadashi supposes they interrupted him gardening.

“And you’re here because?” the man asks Kei.

“I need help.”

“That’s new. What happened to your glasses, kid?”

“Iwaizumi-san, this is Yamaguchi,” Kei introduces, ignoring the question entirely. He steps aside and gestures at Tadashi. “I was wondering if you could teach him the things you taught me? He brought a proper offering.”

Iwaizumi purses his lips as he surveys Tadashi. He uncrosses his arms, and steps over the threshold. Suddenly, Tadashi feels his entire skin tingle with the electric certainty that the person in front of him wasn’t human.

He stumbles backward and trips over the cart, falling onto his butt in the dirt. He scoots back as Iwaizumi’s mouth twitches into a frown. “Oi, what are you doing bringing that sort of thing to me,” he complains. He stretches his hand out to Tadashi.

Tadashi stares up at him, wide eyed and trembling. What he thought was dirt is Iwaizumi’s _skin_. It’s dark and it looks textured like tree bark; Tadashi’s sure if he touched the not-man, it would be rough. There’s a greenish tinge to the whites of his eyes too.

Not human. Not human. Kei has led him into a trap.

“You’re scaring him,” Kei says softly.

“I’m not trying to,” Iwaizumi snaps back. “Kid, get up.” He shakes his hand at Tadashi. “I’m not going to hurt you, not when you brought me an offering.”

“You’re not human,” Tadashi blurts out. “I’m not touching you.”

Iwaizumi laughs. “No, I’m not human.” He leans forward and hauls Tadashi to his feet anyway. His skin is rough like bark, but it doesn’t hurt. In fact, the few seconds they’re in contact makes the ever-present pain of Tadashi’s mark ease for a moment. “But then, you’ve got a bit of ‘not human’ in you, too, kid.”

“He won’t hurt you,” Kei supplies blandly. He studies Tadashi’s shaking hands and wide eyes before stepping forward to lay a hand on the crook of Tadashi’s elbow. “He’s the guardian spirit of the forest,” he murmurs softly into Tadashi’s ear.

Kei’s voice is quiet and it tickles something inside of Tadashi that makes his face and neck grow warm. No one has been this close to him, been this reassuring towards him, since before Makoto had… Tadashi swallows hard and looks up at the blond.

“This is who taught me how to survive. I’m hoping he’ll do the same for you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Omamori: A charm against bad luck.


	4. Counsel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UH. Hi. Sorry for the unnecessarily long wait; I honestly didn't realize it had been as long as it had been? Especially since I work on it a bit at a time...! In any case, enjoy?

“He’s the guardian spirit of this forest,” Kei murmurs into his ear. “He’s who taught me how to survive, and I’m hoping he’ll do the same for you.”

Kei’s eyes are trained on Iwaizumi, but his voice is only for Tadashi; it’s low and soft and urging. The hand on Tadashi’s elbow is warm, and power ebbs and flows through his blood, starting at the place where Kei’s fingers brush his skin.

Tadashi feels drunk, almost. His head is light and his body is heavy; something fizzles like soda bubbles inside of him. He looks to Iwaizumi, whose arms are now crossed and his eyebrows raised in a mask of polite disinterest.

The rough bark of his forearms and his green eyes are a bit disconcerting. When he opens his mouth, Tadashi can see that his tongue is black like humus soil.

“If you actually bothered, kid, you could teach him a thing or two,” Iwaizumi snorts.

Kei shrugs and bows at the waist, hand slipping from Tadashi’s elbow. “I cannot,” he says. His back is straight and elegant; he does not raise his head. “Please, Iwaizumi-san.”

Tadashi gapes for a moment at the sudden formality; he’s only known Kei for hours, yet the shock of seeing him bow is as if it’s going against years of familiarity. He tears his eyes from Kei and gazes at Iwaizumi.

The spirit’s head is tipped to the side and there’s a fond grin on his face, warm and a bit rueful, like one gazing at a younger sibling. Tadashi bows his head as well. “Please,” he says quietly. “I would do anything.”

“Ohhhh! You shouldn’t say that sort of thing to a god!” a new voice interrupts, startling Tadashi. “You’ll never know what you could get into like that!”

Tadashi jerks up out of his bow and stumbles backwards at the sudden appearance of a new spirit; it’s male in appearance, mousy hair and mischievous eyes, and much taller than Iwaizumi.

As Tadashi gapes, he realizes that the new spirit is hovering about a meter off of the floor, giving him an extra boost of height. It’s a shockingly pretty spirit, but it makes Tadashi uneasy, especially in the way it grins at him—it doesn’t reach his eyes. In fact, it’s almost predatory.  He reminds himself that he thought Makoto was pretty, too.

He takes another step back, groping behind him for Kei’s sleeve—his instincts tell him to get away, to get Kei away. To run.

“Don’t mind that thing,” Iwaizumi says, rolling his eyes. “It’s just a shitty _zashiki warashi_. Nothing to be afraid of.”

 “Don’t those bring good luck?” Tadashi stammers. Kei’s hand finds his elbow again.

Iwaizumi snorts, “Are they? Maybe that’s why he’s shitty.”

“Excuse _you_! I am perfectly good luck!” the spirit whines. “You just don’t _take_ it when it’s offered! In fact, you should feel blessed with my very presence!”

Without even looking, Iwaizumi reaches back and grabs the _zashiki warashi_ by the nose, cutting off its complaints. “He’s Oikawa, by the way. He’s a layabout who won’t find a good house to haunt, so I’m stuck with him.”

“But I _like_ it here, Iwa-chan!” Oikawa complains, voice muffled. “You need me with all those nasty things you ke— _ow ow ow_!”

“Then how about you stop intimidating our guests?” Iwaizumi grouses, shaking his hand a bit.

Oikawa pouts until Iwaizumi lets him go.

“See?” Kei murmurs to Tadashi, “It’s fine. Nothing to be afraid of.”

Tadashi pinches Kei’s shirtsleeve between his fingers. A slow, all-encompassing shiver starts to wrack through his spine. There’s something wild in Oikawa and Iwaizumi’s eyes, something that makes Tadashi want to cower and bow and plead.

Guardian spirits—these are _gods_. The information sinks into him like a knife.

They are inhuman, willful, wild—and their attention is focused on him alone. His brand smarts and twists against his skin, something dark and just as willful; it feels like a hook in his skin, dragging him away.

“C…can you help me, really? Really actually _help_ me?” Tadashi squeaks.

Oikawa scoffs, but Iwaizumi smiles. “Come in, we’ll see.”

He turns and retreats back into the doorway; Oikawa follows after him, pausing only to stick his tongue out over his shoulder. Kei sighs at the action.

“Well, come on. Take the wagon with us.”

“Is it fertilizer just because he’s a forest spirit?” Tadashi asks, grabbing the handle. His mouth skitters around the word _god,_ because it’s just too much to take in.

Kei rubs the back of his neck, shaking his head. “Well… yes and no. He uses it for… Well, you’ll see.”

“I wish you were a bit more straightforward,” Tadashi sighs softly. “Especially since you _know_ this time.”

 “I can’t. Words have power,” Kei says. He reaches out and takes the handle as well, hoisting the front two wheels off of the ground as they cross the threshold of the cottage. “There’s a reason he stopped Oikawa-san—and it’s not just because Oikawa-san’s insufferable.”

Tadashi steps inside with Kei and promptly collapses in pain. His skin sears like the day it did when Makoto held him down, a fiery burn that builds and twists in his chest until he can’t even see.  He thinks he screams, but he can’t hear anything either.

A figure shimmers before his eyes—a woman in white, eyes hard. His hands are bound and he’s definitely screaming now, because he’s cold and it hurts and he feels the roughness of his mouth as his mouth twists around the sounds he’s making. The woman leans over him, hands heavy on his shoulders. She pushes hard and says something that he can’t hear, but there’s another woman behind her, eyes empty and a line of scar tissue against her skin. She mouths something, something that fits itself into Tadashi’s mouth.

_Just die just die die already let me go it’s lonely here—_

The woman in white shoves him down, arms folding like a bar over his shoulders as she turns her head and shouts.

“Kid, kid, get up,” the woman says… Only, it’s not a woman’s voice. “Get up.”

“The warding caught him,” a soft voice reproaches.

“What the hell did you bring me, Tsukishima?”

“You have an idea,” the same voice answers.

_Kei,_ Tadashi thinks. He opens his eyes, gasping; the pain recedes just as quickly as it came. Iwaizumi’s face hovers in his vision, his hands pressed over the place where Tadashi’s brand rests. Something rustles under his touch, and Tadashi looks down.

Iwaizumi cups a handful of dirt over Tadashi’s brand, and between his fingers, stems and hyphae start to emerge. A tall blood red stem bursts between Iwaizumi’s forefingers, and bursts into white, fuzzy blossoms; the blossoms quickly brown and drop, leaving white pods that look like eyes, all pointed at Tadashi’s face.

A mushroom pops up between his thumbs, and quickly oozes a red fluid that looks exactly like blood. It seeps between Iwaizumi’s fingers again; there’s a tugging feeling on Tadashi’s skin, like the roots and mycelium are growing into him, threading into his veins and spreading out, composting him while he’s still alive.

Tadashi closes his eyes again, shivering.

“No, look,” Iwaizumi says. “Watch.”

Tadashi forces his eyes open again, watching as Iwaizumi closes his hand around the blooms. He scoops them up between his palms. The tugging feeling sharpens into a singular pain, like pulling a tooth out by the root; there’s a feeling like a pop on his chest, and then the roots are free of him, swaying above his body, flaking dirt off onto his chest.

A glass terrarium appears beneath Iwaizumi’s fingers, the bottom filled with rocks and jagged glass; Iwaizumi carefully fits the handful of dirt and fungi into it, without care of the glass in the bottom. The terrarium shakes, roots crawling up the edges of the glass, covering the entire container until there’s a black mass inside of the glass. Iwaizumi carefully shakes his hand, green sap drips from his fingers and into the writing root ball. It stills and settles in its new prison.

Iwaizumi tips his head to the side and cradles the glass between his hands. “How do you feel, kid?”

Kei kneels beside Tadashi, offering his hand. Tadashi takes it and pulls himself up. He feels weak and shaky, like he’d just gotten over the worst of the flu or sprinted as hard as he could until he collapsed. His hand drifts to his chest on instinct; the shirt over his brand is slightly damp, and soil crumbles away from the spot when he touches it. It doesn’t ache. He hooks his fingers into the collar and tugs down, inhaling sharply.

Just that morning, it was inflamed and oozing like an infected sore—now, it’s faded, innocuous looking, the skin around it white like scar tissue, the design itself dark like a regular tattoo.

“What?”

“Iwaizumi-san’s primary powers involve purification,” Kei murmurs softly. “Plants change the very nature of the earth, you know.”

“Water is more powerful,” Iwaizumi says with a snort. “Kid, come with me. I need to submerge this before it breaks loose.”

Tadashi stands with Kei’s help: Kei’s hands are held out before Tadashi even realizes he’s too weak to stand. He takes them gratefully, murmuring his thanks as he wavers on his feet. Kei’s hand falls to the small of his back to support him, and Tadashi feels his face heat with the intimacy of the gesture of it.

Tadashi takes a moment to regain his balance, clutching onto Kei’s arm. The wooziness is beginning to bleed away, but he squeezes Kei’s arm even harder. He hadn’t noticed before, but the inside of Iwaizumi’s cabin is decidedly not the interior of a home. It’s more like an overgrown greenhouse, with plants crawling up the ceilings, arbors dripping with vines, pots and bottles and vials filled with buds and fronds and bits of rock and glass—just like the terrarium Iwaizumi holds in his hands.

Tadashi feels himself start to shake with the mental vertigo of it all.

“It’s safe,” Kei says softly, “Go on with him.”

“…are you coming?” Tadashi asks.

“No,” Kei answers. “Iwaizumi only invited you. I can’t go.”

Iwaizumi cocks his head and chuckles. “I won’t eat you,” he reassures.

“’Cause you’d taste bad,” Oikawa says from somewhere above Tadashi’s head. “Being cursed and all—stringy meat.”

Tadashi yelps and jumps forward, scrambling towards Iwaizumi as Oikawa puffs his cheeks out and blows a gust of cold air at Tadashi’s back.

Iwaizumi glares at Oikawa as Oikawa ducks behind Kei’s back. “Ignore the shitty- _warashi_ ,” he says, making a grand gesture of rolling his green-tinted eyes. He cups his hand over Tadashi’s shoulder, like there’s an invisible barrier that keeps him from touching Tadashi.

Tadashi wonders if there actually is—if Iwaizumi is simply being polite or if he really _can’t_ touch him. He casts another look towards Kei, who raises an eyebrow at him. Behind Kei’s shoulder, Oikawa makes a rather lewd gesture.

A potted plant falls from its twine on the ceiling, directly onto Oikawa’s head. Kei pinches the bridge of his nose in frustration. Tadashi tries to laugh but it comes out like a sob.

“It’s okay, kid,” Iwaizumi urges softly. “Your friend will be safe, too.”

Tadashi swallows hard and balls his fists up, nails cutting into his palms. He nods and follows Iwaizumi off through the foliage.

He looks around as they walk; there’s no real path on the mossy floor, just rocks that have been polished flat. Heavy tables of granite and wood and one that Tadashi thinks might be bone section out the spaces where there aren’t plants. They’re covered with dirt and saplings and bottles and vases. Some look like the pottery Tadashi’s seen in museums. A fern grows out of a beer can that looks like it was thrown away the day before.

Sunlight filters in through the ceiling that is alternately glass and steel and tree branches. Bottles of plants and water tinkle like wind chimes.

“What… what is all this?”

“My workshop,” Iwaizumi answers. “Mostly spirits. Some are souls. Being transformed into plants makes them easier to purify. There are a few new species I’m working on, too. I’ve taken up salamanders recently, since you humans don’t appreciate them.”

“S…salamanders?”

Iwaizumi snorts. “See what I mean. Salamanders, kid. Wonderful things. Do you know Japaluras?”

“You mean the climbing lizards?”

“Those exactly,” Iwaizumi says happily. “I’ve got several of them. Trained them to pull down the oldest bottles from the treetops for me.”

 Tadashi nods absently; a forest god being fond of forest animals isn’t exactly odd, he thinks. But when he thinks about forest animals, he definitely thinks deer or foxes, not salamanders and climbing lizards. He falls silent as they walk. The moss gives away to a carpet of roots, tangled and covered in lichen.

The light begins to dim, and through the green haze of forest, Tadashi gets glimpses of red-painted wood, old and worn and peeling. He hears the water before they reach it; at first, it’s dampness in the spongy moss beneath his feet. Then, a slow trickle through the roots, then tiny pools between them, reflecting green and the blue of a sky that Tadashi can’t see.

The pond is small, and surrounds a spring that burbles up from the root system of a large tree. A _shimenawa,_ old and fraying circles around the tree. Tadashi cranes his neck up, but the tree goes further than he can even fathom, its branches arching over his head as far as he can see. Its trunk is larger than he could stretch his arms. Inset into the massive trunk is a natural hollow, where the water sparkles with sunlight that isn’t there. Inside, on a mossy rock, is a shrine.

“Tsukki said this wasn’t a shrine,” Tadashi says softly, kneeling at the small pool of water. Moss grows on the rocks and roots around it, soft and wet. He runs his fingers over them, eyes tracing over the small, weather-worn wood of the inset shrine.

Water soaks into his jeans, and the uneven surface bites into his knees, but Tadashi ignores it. He reaches out to the surface of the water, then withdraws his hand.

“Tsukishima is an odd child,” Iwaizumi says softly. “He knows, yet he won’t acknowledge what is in front of him. Here, what you were looking for.”

Tadashi looks up; in Iwaizumi’s rough-barked hand, there is a wooden dipper.  Tadashi takes it in his right hand and scoops up water to begin to wash.

“But, he knew you would help me. He called this a pilgrimage,” Tadashi murmurs as he transfers the dipper to his left hand. The water is cold as ice against his skin, and makes his teeth ache as he sips it up from his left hand. His mouth burns after he spits it out into his palm. When he turns the dipper upright to finish the ritual washing, it dissolves into leaves that sink into the water.

Tadashi gazes into the hollow of the tree at the old shrine.

He wants to touch the grain of the wood—it looks soft in its agelessness. The stone it sets on is white with weathering and covered in downy moss—the face of the _kami_ within is aged smooth. “All the hokora in the forest… They’re for you, aren’t they?”

“Once,” Iwaizumi says, tipping his head to the side. “There was more than this. My protection could span past this forest, to any of the wild places where people prayed and feared. Fear begets reverence; no longer do the humans fear that which they cannot see—and those who can see, well. Many children are like Tsukishima is. They see, but they don’t fear. They aren’t afraid of what the world is becoming under their eyes.”

He leans forward and drops the terrarium into the pool. The spring shoots up suddenly, sending the container bobbing and spinning in the sudden turbulence.

“I _am_ afraid,” Tadashi says quietly. “I brought an offering. Tsukki, too, he brought it. He respects you. And he’s afraid. I think Tsukki is just as afraid as I am.”

Iwaizumi’s lips curl up into a wry smirk as he shakes his head. “Kid, I’ll say it outright—I can’t help you. Not the way you want, and no amount of sweet talking can change that.”

Tadashi purses his lips, “‘Not in the way I want’,” he repeats. “So you _can_ help?”

Iwaizumi laughs suddenly, deep and warm. He reaches out and scruffs his hand through Tadashi’s hair. “You’re just as sharp as your firefly friend, aren’t you? I like that.”

“I doubt it,” Tadashi says, face warm from the attention. “Tsukki knows a lot.”

“But you’ve seen a lot,” Iwaizumi says. He points to the glass terrarium, where it spins in the froth of the spring. “Things that Tsukishima turned his eyes from for a long time. I could pull and pull from you—an entire forest and all that would happen is that you would be left dry as tender.”

Tadashi stops and dips his fingers into the water. It’s cold as ice and makes his fingers feel painfully fuzzy, like touching an electric socket. “So you’re saying that I… I’m going to have to be taken. I’ll die.”

“Not necessarily,” Iwaizumi says softly. “Just that without the source removed, your curse would return to grow.”

“Like cancer,” Tadashi murmurs.

“More like fungi on a log. It’s breaking you down into pieces, child. Even now, you are less than you were, are you not?”

Tadashi nods, then stops. He thinks of what he’s seen, thinks of Kei’s scowling face and his quiet voice. Of strawberry cake and tea and unexpected kindness. “No, no I think I’m more, now.”

Iwaizumi’s grin is infectious; Tadashi’s lips curve upwards in a silent reply, ducking his head shyly under the proud attention of the god.

“So what can I do?” Tadashi says, feeling brave. “Is there anything, anything at all?”

“Fight back,” Iwaizumi says. He produces a vial from his jeans, and dips it into the spring. “There is a way, but it is dangerous, and you have to wait for the day he comes for you in earnest.”

Tadashi gulps, but nods. “I’ll…I’ll do it.”

* * *

Kei tries to ignore Oikawa as he waits for Tadashi to come back. He knows where Iwaizumi’s taken him, knows that it’s safe, but he’s still unsettled by the fact that, from where he’s standing, it looks like Iwaizumi and Tadashi simply disappeared. That, paired with the sight of Tadashi writhing and screaming in pain on the floor when the wards caught him, brought Kei’s default levels of mildly uncomfortable all the way up to extremely uncomfortable, and he knows that Oikawa knows it.

Engaging in someone whose default is to annoy the living hell out of everyone is not something that Kei really wants to do. Instead, he moves over to what looks like an abandoned picnic table, brushes the dirt off of the bench after making sure the vines weaving in and out of the slats wasn’t poison ivy or anything similar, then sits, arms tightly crossed over his chest.

He sees Oikawa drift behind him, but he ignores Oikawa, arms tightening against himself. He crosses his leg over his knee, teeth clenched.

Oikawa settles in the arbor overhead, shaking leaves off of the trellis onto Kei.

Kei closes his eyes and exhales slowly. Vines start to tickle at his ankles.  

Kei pulls both feet up onto the bench and crosses his arms over his knees. A wisteria vine snakes down and tickles its way under his collar.

“ _What?!_ ” Kei snaps, slapping the vine away from him.

“Hm?” Above him, Oikawa lounges on the arbor like the world’s largest cat. He mimes filing his nails. “What do you mean, what?”

“That’s not mischief, that’s outright dickishness. What do you want,” Kei demands. He brushes leaves off of his shoulders.

“Who, me? Whoever said I wanted anything?”

Kei rolls his eyes. “Usually you ignore me too,” he mutters. “What gives?”

“Unusual circumstances, of course,” Oikawa replies. 

“Which are?” Kei prompts, despite knowing the answer.

“You brought an interesting child,” Oikawa says with a smirk.

Kei looks up at the spirit, brows pinched. “Define interesting,” he says.

Oikawa reclines against the arbor, reaching up to twirl his fingers around the trailing vines of wisteria. It bursts into bloom around his fingers. “Oh, no, I expect it isn’t anything you don’t already know. Or at least suspect,” he drawls. “ _Especially_ after the little show with the ward.”

Oikawa flops over and mimes clutching at his chest; “ _It’s lonely here_ ,” he mimics.

Kei clenches his teeth, his breath hissing out between his lips as Oikawa smirks down at him with half-lidded eyes. Half-formed curses and arguments push up against the roof of his mouth and he feels himself shake with a sudden surge of anger. He stays silent.

“But you knew before that,” Oikawa continues. He grins and the blossoms flutter open and closed, like the plant is breathing. “Otherwise, why would you have brought that child to a god?”

Kei feels like he’s been punched. The anger is gone as soon as it came; instead he feels empty, scooped clean and cold. His throat tightens and his eyes burn and water. “So he’s dead,” he says quietly.

Oikawa laughs gleefully; “And what makes you say that?”

Kei doesn’t want to play this game with Oikawa anymore, but he has too. He has to do something. He takes a shaky breath and rubs his fingers against his eyes.

“He got caught by the wardings. Spirits that shouldn’t have found my apartment found it. I’ve seen more minor spirits today than I have in a while, because my attention on him is drawing them.” Kei frowns. “He’s something like my... Like what happened to Akiteru?”

The vine sways in the air as Oikawa twirls his fingers. “Like,” he agrees. “But not. Similar, but not the same. Your brother was, without a doubt, one hundred percent dead-- the only reason he didn’t stay that way was because of you.”

Kei cannot repress his flinch. He knows all too well; he swallows past his nausea. “What do you mean? About Yamaguchi? Why is it important that Aki… that he was completely dead before?”

“What do you think?”

Kei doesn’t know what to think. He sinks back onto the bench, bracing his elbows to the table as he runs his fingers through his hair.

How could someone be dead, yet not be dead?

“I think that... Maybe, he’s not wholly human,” Kei says quietly. “Maybe he used to be, but now…”

“Oh, no, he’s still human, as much as you can call a walking curse human. I suppose, of course, if one could purify him completely, his soul could return to where his body is.”

“And could Iwaizumi-san do that?” Kei inquires.

“He can,” Oikawa confirms. The flowers begin to rustle, creating a wind that makes the glass bottles chime. “But he won’t,” he finishes with a laugh. He shifts upright, dangling his feet off of the trellis.

“But we brought an offering.  If it isn’t enough, I could bring more,” Kei urges.

“Iwa-chan won’t purify that boy,” Oikawa says again. “Because his impurity is what’s keeping him alive.”

The _zashiki_ kicks his feet in the air. “I mean, if you begged and invoked Iwa-chan’s true name, he’d be honor-bound to serve his worshipers, preistling. However, if that child were to return to his true form, he’d be gobbled right on up. The fact that his spirit wanders is keeping this Makoto-san away from him, you know,” Oikawa says, spinning his fingers. “Most of the curse is probably confined within his human body.”

“How do you know that name?” Kei asks, cocking his head to the side. “No one told you.”

Oikawa shrugs. “House spirit. They’re technically still in the house, since the shrine is still in the wards. He’s telling Iwa-chan about it now,” he says. He cups a hand to his ear. “Iwa-chan’s explaining about the nasty spirits he pulled from the boy’s curse mark right now.”

“Ah,” Kei murmurs. “So… you’re saying that… being away from his body is what’s keeping him alive? How?”  

“It's separated the nasty spirit’s ability to track him. The boy isn’t even aware that he’s the walking dead, poor thing. That, too, is another layer of protection. If he knew, instinctually, his spirit would seek its body.”

“So he can’t know?”

“Not yet,” Oikawa muses. “He can eat like a person, dress like a person, and interact with those with the sight and belief in that which others cannot see. But he won’t be able to recall the taste of his food—other than whether or not he liked it—and unless the sight is inborn in the person, they won’t remember him. I hope you weren’t talking to him on the train, otherwise, people would think you were talking to yourself!”

Kei ignores Oikawa’s snickering. “So he won’t know on his own?”

“Maybe,” Oikawa murmurs. “If he grooms his own power, perhaps. It isn’t like your beloved brother, little firefly—he doesn’t know he’s dead.”

“Mostly dead,” Kei corrects faintly.

“Aren’t all humans?”

Kei sighs and turns his gaze away from Oikawa’s goading grin; he never much liked communing with _yokai—_ they had a fondness for speaking in riddles that Kei’s never cared for wading through. He puts his head in his hands and sighs again. “Anything else?”

“Not really,” Oikawa says. He flexes his fingers and the wisteria around him wither and die, browned petals falling into Kei’s lap. “You don’t have the power to. If you’d bothered to live as Iwa-chan told you to, to train and practice rather than just ignoring everything, you’d be able to save that boy. You probably could have saved your brother too, if you had bothered.”

Kei clenches his teeth so hard he thinks they’ll break. Spots dance in his vision and he presses his palms to his eyes. Dead flowers fall at his feet as Oikawa jumps off of the arbor.

“This time, priestling, listen to the god you promised yourself to,” Oikawa says in his ear, his breath a cold winter’s breeze at Kei’s neck. “Oh! Look, it’s Iwa-chan!”

Kei looks up to see Iwaizumi and Tadashi reappear like the sight of sky between branches.

Tadashi waves at Kei, beaming. He trots up to the table, holding a lizard in his hands. “Look, Tsukki, Godzilla!”

Kei can’t help but laugh. “Is it really?”

“Really,” Tadashi laughs, holding his arm outright as the lizard scampers up it. “Iwaizumi-san said so.”

“I thought it would be bigger,” Kei chuckles.

“Don’t make fun,” Tadashi scolds, sitting down beside Kei. “Iwaizumi-san says I can keep him to run messages back to him.”

“Really?” Kei asks, looking over at Iwaizumi.

Iwaizumi nods. He walks around to the other side of the picnic table and sits across from Tadashi and Kei. “You’ll need something reliable. I trained him myself. Better than the _shikigami_ you can summon, anyway, Tsukishima.”

Kei blushes. “I… uh. Can’t. Can’t summon… the _shikigami_ ,” he whispers quietly.

Iwaizumi simply raises an eyebrow as Oikawa snickers quietly.

“Well,” Iwaizumi says. “There you go. Godzilla.”

“Iwaizumi-san says he knows a way to help us—I mean, help me,” Tadashi says, face turning pink. “Help me. You… you don’t have to help if you don’t want to.”

Kei looks at Tadashi for a moment— takes in his pink cheeks and dark freckles and wide eyes. The way his lip trembles slightly and the echo of what was a rounder face when he was well-fed. He looks hopeful, though; even more so than he did that morning. Whatever he and Iwaizumi spoke about had brought something vital back to Tadashi; something more substantial to him. 

_This boy is almost dead_ , Kei thinks to himself, his chest aching. He thinks of his brother’s round face and lively eyes and how Akiteru used to hope so much for everything. He looks over at Iwaizumi and Oikawa, and knows that he doesn’t have the control over his own power to do anything at all, but he can’t sit by and be the agent of someone else’s suffering again.

He turns back to Tadashi.

“No… I’ll help,” he tells Tadashi.

Tadashi grabs Kei’s arm and squeezes it, eyes glinting with unshed tears. “Thank you—Tsukki, thank you.”

“My advice is thus,” Iwaizumi says after a moment’s pause; “Go to your usual sources, Kei. Talk with the named _yokai,_ see what they know. Do what they ask of you. On the streets, do not ignore what you see. Use this when the time comes. Alone, it cannot help you,” he continues gravely.

He taps the bottle’s top with one bark-encrusted finger. “This is the purest of water, collected from the dew of flowers on the old holy days and mixed with _miki_.”

“I sealed the bottle,” Oikawa supplies. “Very auspicious.”

Iwaizumi rolls his eyes and sighs, “And it was sealed by a _zashiki warashi.”_

“So you’re giving us a bottle of liquid luck and saying ‘nice to know you’?” Kei sighs.

Tadashi elbows him in the ribs. “Tsukki,” he hisses.

Kei shrugs.

Iwaizumi pushes the bottle across the table. “It’s up to you how you use it,” he says. “Part of the power comes from believing.”

“So you’re giving us a bottle of water, calling it liquid luck and— _Ow_! Yamaguchi that was my foot!”

“Thank you, Iwaizumi-san,” Tadashi cuts in. “We’re very grateful.”

Kei snorts, but Tadashi’s foot grinds down on his toes again. “Yes, _ow_ —we’re grateful.”

Iwaizumi laughs and shakes his head. “You’ll figure it out in time,” he says. “But for now, be safe.”

And with that, Iwaizumi and Oikawa disappear. The foliage, the bottles, all of it, vanish.

Tadashi looks around, gaping at suddenly finding himself sitting at a rotting table in a crumbling cottage. “What—what happened?”

“They decided they were done with us,” Kei says grumpily. “Probably because it’s getting late; their other parishioners probably called on them.”

Tadashi shifts uneasily. “Do they do that often?”

“Insufferably often. The elder spirits, named _yokai_ , and even stronger human spirits, they’re all… a bit… Well, they don’t exist on the same plane as us, so things like time, and common pleasantries, they’re sort of vague about it.”

“I see,” Tadashi murmurs, gripping his fingers into something soft. He starts, then looks down. Between his hands is a small Godzilla stuffed toy. A leaf is tied to its neck like a letter. “Look, it really is Godzilla!”

Kei snorts  in amusement. He stands and holds his hand out. “C’mon. We need to go before it gets dark here. I’ll pull the wagon.”

Tadashi takes Kei’s hand gingerly. The same electric current as before fizzles under his skin as his face warms. He feels stronger when he takes Kei’s hand. He squeezes Kei’s hand tightly.  

“We can both pull it,” he says cheerily, swinging their hands together. “Tell me how you met Iwaizumi-san, to pass the time.”

Kei pauses, then smiles softly at Tadashi, letting their hands fall apart as he moves. He grabs the cart, which is now filled with bottles of water, crystals, and a fine cage of glass and metal. “Well,” he starts, as Tadashi’s hand covers his own over the handle of the dolly. “I was pretty young.”

Kei tugs the cart forward, walking slow so Tadashi can keep pace as he talks. For once, he doesn’t bother to look behind him, content in the simple attention of someone who believes him again. Behind them, the sparrows start to cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> - _Zashiki Warashi_ : House spirits; they bring good luck, but are often mischievous.  
> - _Actaea pachypoda_ : Doll's eye plant, the eyes are the plant's white berry. They're not actually native to Japan!  
> - _Hydnellum peckii_ : Bleeding tooth fungus, the "blood" is simply a pigment that young fungal bodies produce. They're actually a mycorrhizal species, meaning they form a symbiotic relationship with a host plant's root system for an exchange of minerals. Again, not indigenous to Japan, though.  
> - _Salamanders_ : The Japanese giant salamander (Ōsanshōuo) is considered vulnerable due to disruption of habitat by urbanization.  
> - _Japalura polygonata_ : Okinawa climbing lizard  
> - _Shimenawa_ : Lengths of rope used for ritual purification; often, they indicate a sacred site or objects capable of attracting spirits in Shinto religion.  
> - _Temizu_ : A symbolic purification practice done at the entrances to Shinto shrines  
> - _Hokora_ : Miniature shrines  
> - _Shikigami_ : Conjured beings, often used like familiars  
> - _Miki_ : Sake that has been offered as part as a food offering (also: omiki); sake is also used for purification 
> 
> While not directly mentioned:  
> -Yosuzume: Night sparrows. Some legends say that they bring bad luck to those who see them, others say they are simply a premonition of bad luck, to warn travelers of other, more dangerous yokai in the area.


End file.
